Category: Uncategorized (Page 20 of 22)

Quote: “I can’t believe we made it (This is what we made, made)/ This is what we’re thankful for (This is what we thank, thank)/ I can’t believe we made it (This a different angle)/ Have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apeshit? Rah

Comment: These lyrics from “Apesh*t” by The Carters seemed to highlight the elements within Parker’s section on race studies within Post Colonial and Race Studies where the black community can critique and draw new forms of historical awareness to previously normalized renditions of whiteness. As from the chapter, “they honor the past, critique it and change it, and make it their own” (342). I felt that these lyrics are exemplified in the music video as the countless paintings and sculptures all depict this sense of whiteness, yet, at the same time, we know the historical truths of how art and culture were advanced by the work and exploitation of black people. For the Carter’s to bring awareness to that in the form of celebration, they can now take their realities of history and culture into the center of what was usually reserved for white society. 

Question: 

I might raise the question of how this could fit into the concept of double consciousness as presented in Parker’s chapter through the excerpt by W.E.B Du Bois on how “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (329). I thought that maybe this video and song point to the fact that it is usually this balance between cultures, either American or African American, and by the expression within the video, it might be allowing a blend of the two in both response and denial of those separations. 

Quote:  “She didn’t spend the time she had between rehearsals telling Jasmine how to cook and clean American-style. Mrs. Daboo did that in 16B. Mrs. Daboo would barge in with a plate of stale samosas and snoop around giving free advice on how mainstream Americans did things. As if she were dumb or something!”

Comment: What was interesting about the short story is all the subtle hints made to trying to figure out what type of historical background she should share and how much information about herself to let be known. There is tension between wanting to be modern and American but, at the same time, recognizing those immigrants like Mrs. Daboo who attempt to embrace the American way, seeming transparent and overly done to other immigrants like Jasmine. The idea within Parker’s chapter on Postcolonial and Race Studies addressed the diasporic tensions of wanting to maintain a new identity but the inevitable mixing and changes that occur with those cultures and commerce globally. 

Question: I wondered about the significance of the ending and whether or not it is supposed to be a critique of how the assimilation into American culture and way of thinking is always better than her life before. Yet, I also wonder if it is an awakening – to mix both and have an identity that is not tied to one or the other but instead above both.

Robin Mitchell’s chapter titled “Entering Darkness Colonial Anxieties And The Cultural Production of Sarah Baartmann” aims to identify the greater context of the atmosphere in France following the period of the French Revolution to post-Napeolonic rule that led to the use and production of Sarah Baartmann in the early 19th century. Mitchell first identifies that the “Political and Social uncertainty marked this era, with royalists, Bonapartists, and republicans failing to reconcile their disparate ideologies” (Micthell 53). Next, Mitchell emphasizes the understanding of the Haitian Revolution, which brought many racial consequences concerning slavery and empire. Through these connections, Mitchell analyzes how Baartmann had come to resemble not only the scientific discourses of the time but was also employed as a mechanism of control and commodification of the French nationalistic views through Baartmann and her African nationality.

In the case of Baartman’s political implications as a method of analysis for Mitchell, she argued that “She thus represented the antithesis of Frenchness – inappropriate sexuality, feminine aggressiveness, and excess…Baartmann’s body and her image were used to establish nationalistic boundaries” (Mitchell 57). Looking through the lens of colonialism ad maintaining an empire, Mitchell uncovered this justification for continuing racist systems of power and slavery that came from the positioned, manufactured, and misrepresented staging of Baartmann against the traditional society France endeavored to return to. 

Mitchell also continued with an approach of visual representation, which further solidified her conclusions that Baartmann was intended to be a foil “regulating normative French behaviors”(Mitchell 78). The viewing of Baartmann as she was reduced to exaggerated and distorted features within printed sources could provide criticism and foster fear. Employing the well-known imagery within Louis François Charon and Aaron Martinet’s Les Curieux en extase ( The Curious in Ecstasy) is the representation of what “the introduction of “foreign” elements can do to a “civilized” society…Because Baartmann is marked uncivilized, her presence, however submissive, evokes uncivilized behavior”(Mitchell 72). 

Like within the political scope and visual representation, in Mitchell’s conclusion, she links these methods to the imperialistic atmosphere and attempts to regain power and control of a society’s norms and values following such a period of uncertainty. However, a premiere method was the reduction of “powerful black bodies to harmless spectacle assuaged fears and smoothed out conflicts among…society, providing a much-needed unifying force”(Mitchell 79). At the gain of a continued colonial oppressor was the heightened level of division relating to race and white superiority at the expense of Sarah Baartmann and her culture

Quote: “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (paragraph 19?)

Comment: This quote made me think of how this assertion must mean that before, her life was really not her own and that by feeling this new wave of freedom and life’s purpose, she is, for the first time realizing her own confinement within these strict gender roles, her life must have always adhered to prior. Yet, there are still elements like the idea of “running riot” that bring in ideas that this is not a good thing to be feeling and that it is a disturbance or this uncontrollable display that should be repressed. Nonetheless, I still see it as a mechanism for women to subtly start to question their roles and what their lives might look like with this freedom and choice and the idea of something being “her own” while not going too far as not to be published or allowed into their realm of knowledge in this patriarchal system. 

Question: 

Knowing that this article was published in Vogue to me makes this interesting because this is an example of a sphere in society that is usually accessible and taken in primarily by women. How could this perhaps be a way for women to form critiques and silent protests in a way that the publishers or men would not pick up on but the women that this type of magazine may start to pick up on the resistance? Also, the fact that it is in a magazine plays into this commodity idea that this story’s emotions or relevance among their audience could be used just to attract readers. Still, I also feel that these women may have used that as a disguise of sorts to partake in the form of expression they could achieve while under certain conditions in a commodified and patriarchal world. 

Some challenges I have encountered now that my tutoring sessions are more involved with writing as the class is finishing up their project with a written component is actually getting the students to want to talk about their writing. I found that the initial questions they have are always about due dates or clarifying an aspect of the assignment, which I am happy to clarify quickly, but when they now have a written project, I try to make it clear that I am here to help with that. I found a strategy that helps with this is first to ask them how they feel about this project having a written competent to understand their response to writing in general. Most came back with a remark that they don’t like writing, but at least this topic allows them to add personal interests. Then having them read what they have aloud helps to get the students to notice things like, “oh, I didn’t finish this thought yet.” I also feel that when those initial confusions about the assignment are addressed, they connect to why their writing is under the word count or missing something because they didn’t fully understand the components. Additionally, the idea of the due date approaching and as they were required to meet with me, I had many students come just to sit and say they were done with the assignment but not looking to analyze their writing. With the due date one day away, I tried to tackle smaller issues like formatting and how to check that their writing aligned with the assignment’s requirements. Another challenge has been that many students wanted to ask my opinion on the professor, and one student vented to me about how a grade was lowered based on attendance. Like in ch. 13, I did not offer my opinion but instead urged them to set up a meeting with their professor and maybe take a look at all the information available about grading policies, so they are in the know a bit more. 

Quote: “I’d spirit/ his knives and cut out his black heart, / seal it with science fluid inside/ a bell jar, place it on a low/ shelf in a white man’s museum/ so the whole world could see/ it was so shriveled and hard, / geometric, deformed, unnatural.” 

Comment: These lines, in particular, made me think about the expectations and assumptions being addressed here with the knowledge that we are in the early 1800s with the industrial revolution, and this I am also assuming black woman is navigating the realities of the racist and oppressive nature of all these scientific advancements and technology. Compared to these jarring last lines, the beginning of this poem stood out to me as well; I almost imagined all the fanciful and high culture scientific exhibitions in front of a curtain where behind it lies the human suffering and exploitation of certain people to make it possible. 

Question: I wondered how this poem might fit into Marxism theory in more of a social way concerning the idea of how we can become conscious about certain powerful or dominant ideologies and pick up on the forms of resistance. This poem seems like an intersection of resistance from the structural racism that we know influenced innovation and industrializing, a feminist critique on what women’s place was during this time, and a Marxist take on this poem’s social and material history. 

What I found in chapter 12 on Interdisciplinary and Online tutoring that stood out to me was the recognition of how essential writing is in any field, not just limited to humanities, and that having a solid base in which you can communicate effectively in any area of interest or future field should be a common skillset. Another aspect that I think I could implement in my tutoring sessions is how they framed how being a generalist or a subject expert in tutors does not always guarantee success. I felt this allowed me to start to think about ways I might combat having a student come to me for help where I don’t fully understand the content of the paper and how I can embrace that awkwardness or uncomfortable position and allow the student to express their knowledge so then I can start on the writing process. Under the section on online tutoring, even though I don’t think I will have to do this, I still found the methods they provided to be something I can implement in my current tutoring sessions. For instance, starting with a positive comment to make sure the student doesn’t feel like we are just writing in red ink all the time, and also the theme we have discussed in the practicum of trying to narrow down to three major focal points of the writing so the tutee can have a solid base to move off of after the session.

Quote: “The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair/ Little streams pass’d over their bodies” ( lines 12-13). 

Comment: This line from the poem “Song of Myself, XI” by Walt Whitman prompted me to think about many of the concepts we have discussed in class, especially within Ch. 7 of Parker on Queer Theory. For me, this brings up a question of the “naturalization of heterosexuality” or “compulsatory heterosexuality,” which refers to the assumptions when looking at a form of media or literature that heterosexuality is the norm or the expected view if there is no formal delineation that it may be another form. From this quote, I am sensing that many people may assume that this line, and the poem itself, is taken from the perspective of the woman looking out of her window at the men. Yet, that is an assumption of heterosexuality that hasn’t been explicitly defined, and if we analyze this poem with the concepts of queer theory in mind, it could be a display of a queer gaze or same-sex desire. 

Question: While not completely related to Parker or Queer Theory, while reading this poem, I noticed that even though the woman in this narrative is not our object of speculation, she is still trapped in what feminist theory would say is a 2D space, through her window and even described as hiding. In contrast, the young men who are the object of our speculation are somehow still able to have agency and movement and are unaware of how they are perceived. I wonder how this might play into the assumptions about masculinity and femininity in literature and even in gazing. Additionally, does it matter that we know how the author feels about a heterosexual or same-sex gaze?